Author: Taswegian1957

Born in England in 1957 my family came to Australia in 1966. I grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, where I met and married my husband David. We came together over a mutual love of trains. Both of us worked for the railways for many years, his job was with Australian National Railways, while I spent 12 years working for the STA, later TransAdelaide the Adelaide city transit system. After leaving that job I worked in hospitality until 2008. We moved to Tasmania in 2002 to live in the beautiful Huon Valley. David passed away in 2015 and I'm here on my own now but I have Cindy the dog and Polly the cat to keep me company. I currently co-write two Wordpress blogswith my sister Naomi. Our doll blog "Dolls, Dolls, Dolls", and a "Our Other Blog" which is about everything else but with a focus on photographs and places in Tasmania.

Share Your World: 18 February

Sharing My World This Week

If you didn’t have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time?

I’d read more, write more and unfortunately I’d probably shop more online.

Some old travel books from my bookshelves

What job would you be terrible at?

I can think of loads of jobs I’d be terrible at. I’d be a terrible athlete, I’d be terrible at anything that involved ladders, don’t ask me to clean your windows or gutters. I would be lousy at anything in the medical profession as I can’t even watch CSI without cringing at the sight of blood and gore. It would probably be a shorter list if I said what I might be good at.

Window Cleaners on a Hobart building.

 When was the last time you climbed a tree?

I’ve never climbed a tree. Fear of falling remember.

Polly has never climbed a tree either.

Do you count your steps? 

What for? I have tried a pedometer a couple of times but for me walking is more enjoyable if I am not thinking about exercise.

Lake Dulverton Walk 2 Photo by Naomi.

 

Bonus question (just because it’s really silly)   What’s the dumbest way you’ve injured yourself?

I’m not sure it’s the dumbest but I once put my back out cutting my toenails.

 

RDP: Colour

Colours Make Me Happy

I love colourful things and although I’ve come to appreciate black & white photography I love to take photos in colour most of all.

I love the colours in nature, golden daffodils and red roses, green grass and blue sky. I love the way a body of water can be deep blue, or turquoise or even black depending on the conditions and I feel happy when I see a rainbow on a dull day. I look forward to blossoms and spring flowers but also to the golden colours of autumn.

Rainbow over the Huon River
Rainbow over the Huon River
King Alfred daffodil
This tree was showing wonderful autumn colours.

I remember how at one time when my work was making me feel very stressed and I was getting headaches I would go to a fabric store in the city after work. Half an hour or so looking at colourful fabrics and yarns always made me feel better even if I didn’t buy anything. The headache would just go away.

Stone Pippin is the yarn shop.

Lack of colour has the opposite effect on me. A modern decorating trend I have noticed when looking at houses on real estate websites is to have grey walls, flooring, curtains and accessories. Whenever I see this I feel that all the personality has been washed out of the house. I don’t feel that I want to even enter houses like this. If I had to live in one I am sure I would become seriously depressed if I were not allowed to redecorate.

 

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Colour of Your Choice

My Choice is Red

Red is my favourite colour so of course, I could not resist using it for this challenge. Just for fun, I decided that all my pictures would be vehicle-related and the reddest reds  I could find.

The featured image is an old South Australian railcar, these were a maroon colour when new. We called them Redhens for a weird South Australian reason.

Scarlet Ferrari

I know Ferrari’s come in other colours but if they are not red what is the point?

TGR “Y” Class diesel

Old Tasmanian Railways diesel.

Hobart’s Hop on Hop Off bus.

A tourist bus needs to be eye catching.

A vintage fire engine at Hobart Fire Station.

A vintage fire engine.

US yacht Commanche in Hobart after the 2014 race.

A racing yacht.

image Spirit of Tasmania
Boarding the Spirit of Tasmania

Red brake lights as we approach the red and white ferry.

image Virgin jet
Virgin Airlines passenger jet from 2013.

I think it is a shame that Virgin no longer paints their jets red.

A Photo A Week Challenge: Pink

In The Pink

I am not a huge fan of pink usually. It is a pretty colour, don’t get me wrong but I get tired of it being associated with girly things all the time. Everything Barbie is pink, and it’s rather a loud shade for my taste.

I do love pink in nature though and occasionally I see other pink things that I like to photograph. Here are some of them.

A catering van at the Taste of Tasmania
The Red Hat Ladies
Pink sun hats at Salamanca Market
pink rose in the back garden.
Massed pink daisies at Princes Park, Battery Point, Hobart
Day to Night Barbie
Day to Night Barbie

 

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Made By Humans

Man Made

Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, Singapore. Locally known as The Durian
Giant cranes in Pt Klang Malaysia
Tall ship Windward Bound
Tall ship Windward Bound
Big Bessie the ice cream van

There’s No Place Like Home

Since I wrote my last bushfire update things have improved a lot. We had some good rains and that along with some cooler weather enabled the firefighters to do some back burning and mopping up operations, finally dropping Geeveston and the surrounding areas back from “Watch and Act” status to “Advice”.

http://www.fire.tas.gov.au/Show?pageId=colCurrentBushfires

The fires are still listed as “going” but many of the other areas around the state where there have been fires are now listed as “Patrol” or “being controlled”.

I haven’t said a lot about the fires in other areas because I was telling the story from my own point of view but they were all as serious as the one we were facing and there was some property loss. Also, many hectares of World Heritage listed forests have been burned, Tasmania’s honey industry has taken a major hit due to the loss of leatherwood trees and who knows how much wildlife has been killed.  We are extremely fortunate that there was no loss of life and so few homes burned. It could have been much, much worse.

The worst of it is we may find ourselves in this situation again next summer or any summer. This could be our new normal and that is a scary thought.

But:

I am at home. I could have come home a few days ago but I picked today as a good day firstly because it was more convenient for Naomi and secondly because of my trip to the Wooden Boat Festival yesterday.

Apart from smelling a bit stale and needing a good vacuum and dust my house is fine. I will have to get on to the cleaning bit because the real estate agent rang to ask if she could bring a potential buyer to have a look at it on Monday.

A day to laze around at home enjoying my own space would have been nice but it will have to wait, there are dust bunnies to hunt.

Photinia Hedge 2018

The Wooden Boat Festival 2019

Here is a more cheery post than I’ve done recently. Today is the first day of the Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart. It is only on once every two years so I didn’t want to miss it. As I was not sure if the bus would be running from Geeveston I opted to stay an extra day with Matt and Ally and go from their place leaving Matt to doggy sit Cindy.

I got a ride to town with Ally who had to work and arrived around 11:30am. Of course, as it was the first day, not all the boats had arrived and many were making their way into the harbour when I arrived. The tall ships that are usually on display were not due until the afternoon and unfortunately, I was not able to stay to see them.

There were still a lot of very nice ones to see though. Some were quite old but a lot of the ones that I saw were built in the last forty years. I’m sorry but I have a hard time thinking of something from the 1990s as old.

I walked around for a couple of hours taking photos of the ones that I liked best. It was already quite busy although still easy to get a seat in the food area where I stopped to get a baked potato for lunch.  At this point, I thought I should check on Cindy and messaged Matt. He said that she had been howling a lot and of course I immediately felt guilty for leaving her and cut my visit short.

I did manage to take more than 50 photos though. Here are some of them.

Messing about in boats
MV Goolara built 1958
Pelican and Curlew two boats named for birds.
Talking Boats
Brittania one of the older boats I saw.
Moored at Elizabeth St Pier
Gypsy
I thought that the man in this boat was called Gus but actually it is the name of the boat.
Rowboat

https://www.australianwoodenboatfestival.com.au/